Each morning before we begin ministry, the Gaborone Community Chapel team meets together with us for a time of devotion together. Wednesday was my day to lead. I had gone to bed late tired from a long day and didn’t know what I was going to share on the next morning. When I got up, I went out on the porch to pray. As I was praying about what to share, my thoughts turned to stewardship because that is something the Lord has been teaching me a lot about, but then a phrase came to mind that I can only say was from God because I can’t claim that I would have thought about it on my own: Stewarding Beauty. Somehow everything came together after that. What follows is a version I shared with the team yesterday.
A thousand years ago Prince Vladimir the Great, the pagan monarch of Kiev, was looking for a new religion to unify the Russian people. Toward this end Prince Vladimir sent out envoys to investigate the great faiths from the neighboring realms. When the delegations returned, they gave the prince their reports. Some had discovered religions that were dour and austere. Others encountered faiths that were abstract and theoretical. But the envoys who had investigated Christianity in the Byzantine capital of Constantinople reported finding a faith characterized by such transcendent beauty that they did not know if they were in heaven or on earth.
Then we went to Constantinople and they led us to the place where they worship their God, and we knew not whether we were in heaven or earth, for on earth there is no such vision nor beauty, and we do not know how to describe it; we only know that God dwells among men. We cannot forget that beauty.
Upon receiving the report from the Constantinople delegation of the unearthly beauty they had witnessed in Christian worship, Prince Vladimir adopted Christianity as the new faith for the Russian people. What impressed the envoys and persuaded Prince Vladimir to embrace Christianity was not its apologetics or ethics, but its aesthetics – its beauty. Thus we might say it was beauty that brought salvation to the Russian people.
– From Beauty Will Save the World by Brian Zahnd
Stewardship is important, but what does it have to do with beauty? If beauty is something God has given us, how do we steward it well?
First, I want to share a concept that struck me as I’ve been reading through the book of Isaiah over the past couple of months. In Isaiah 60:19-21, it says,
The sun shall be no more your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give you light; but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Your sun shall no more go down, nor your moon withdraw itself; for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended. Your people shall all be righteous; they shall possess the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I might be glorified.In my Bible, the word “glory” has a footnote that says “Or your beauty” and for “glorified,” “Or that I might display my beauty.” The same note occurs for “gloried” in Isaiah 61:1-3. This is the passage that Jesus quoted when He got up to share in the synagogue at the beginning of His ministry, and it says,
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion— to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.I risk quoting these extensive passages for the sake of bringing clarity to a churchy word we use a lot that some people may not have a clear definition for. Glory, what does it mean? What is when we talk about the Lord’s glory, we think of His beauty? What if when we pray that He would be glorified in us, we ask that we would display His beauty well? I think this is the beginning of what it means to steward beauty well.
With that, I think there are three important steps to stewarding beauty. The first of which comes from Psalm 119:37,
Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways.
Before we can begin to steward beauty, we first have to see the beauty around us, but all too often we are distracted by the ugly, painful things of this world. Those things are real, and I’m not saying that we turn a blind eye to them. We don’t, however, need to fixate on these things. We can see them, but then turn our eyes from worthless things to see the beauty that remains.
That’s where step two comes in. We have to slow down enough to see the beauty that exists everywhere, but that we are often moving too fast to notice. Proverbs 14:29, 21:5, and 29:20 all relate being hasty with negative consequences. Proverbs 19:2 says,
Desire without knowledge is not good; and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.
We can miss the way of beauty if we are in too much of a hurry. This isn’t easy, especially in our fast-food, “I want it yesterday” culture. But if we make the decision to slow down, we will see that beauty is all around us.
And once we see the beauty, the last step should be easy. It comes from 2 Corinthians 3:18,
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory [or beauty] of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory [or beauty] to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
We behold the beauty of the Lord, and we let it transform us into a beautiful reflection of His image. In my humble opinion, that’s what it means to steward beauty well. And I think when we steward beauty well, like the Russians envoys, people won’t be able to resist the beauty of the gospel.
